1. Which state in 1790 had the highest number of slaves?
Which state had the least?

2. Why were so many more slaves in the South Atlantic than in the East
South Central region in 1790?

3. How common was slaveholding among all families in 1790?

4. Which state had the highest percentage of slaveholding among
all families?

Critical Thinking Exercise One:

Imagine that you are a former enslaved African American woman,
a wife and mother living in Delaware. Describe at least two ways
your life has changed with the end of slavery.

Critical Thinking Exercise Two:

In January 1837, The Liberator published the following
advertisement from Portland, Maine:

George Potter and Rosella his wife, would take this opportunity
to express their gratitude to God, and under him, to the benevolent
individuals, who generously contributed in aiding them to redeem
their two children from slavery. They have unspeakable happiness
in informing the generous donors that, on the 12th inst, they
received their children, aged eleven and seven years, raised from
the degradation of slavery to the rank of freemen (Aptheker, p.
161).

What does this advertisement suggest about the risk of slave escapes
and about the workings of the institution itself?